


you've got the love

by ImSoSupernova



Category: SKAM (Spain)
Genre: Discussions of Suicidal Tendencies, Discussions of mental illness, F/F, Fluff & Angst, Gen, Mother/Daughter Talks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 18:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19382665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImSoSupernova/pseuds/ImSoSupernova
Summary: As Cris and Joana's relationship develops, Joana confides in her mother.





	you've got the love

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, y'all! This fic was inspired by how Joana's mom told Cris that she'd heard so much about her in the Una Llamada clip. So I decided to write a fic in which I explored the relationship between the two of them, and how close they must be because of Joana's illness and her general loner status. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> This one goes out to my mom. Maybe I'll let her read this one day!

It’s a good day today. Joana can feel the smile on her face; stupid, bright, ear-to-ear and not coming off anytime soon.  
  
It’s a good day today because Joana’s broken up with Eloy and Cris isn’t angry at her anymore. _Quite the opposite_ , Joana thinks, grin growing wider as she remembers the feeling of holding Cris in her arms, smoothing her hair, kissing her on the forehead, cheeks, and mouth right there on the street for everyone in the world to see.   
  
It’s a good day today because she’s told Cris the truth, or at least a partial truth, about herself, about how she thinks and feels, and Cris hasn’t run away. In fact, she’s embraced her, held her close and told her just how much she likes her. _Her_. Joana Acosta Bianchi. Cris likes _her_.   
  
It’s a good day today because today, Joana can believe that her love story maybe, just _maybe_ could have a happy ending.

 

“You’re smiling today,” her mom notes as she comes into the kitchen where Joana’s doing her homework.  
  
“What?” Joana looks up. “I guess so, yeah.” She’s been reliving the moment when Cris told her she liked her again, and sure enough, she feels a face-splitting grin coming on.  
  
“Any particular reason?” Her mom asks. “Or just happy to be alive?”  
  
Joana thinks about kissing Cris, and the fact that she’ll be able to kiss Cris again very soon. “Just happy to be alive,” she says.  
  
“Good.” Her mom smiles at her. “I’m happy to hear that, mija.”  
  
She putters around the kitchen, humming as she gets out various pots and pans and ingredients for dinner, and Joana continues to daydream under the pretense of doing her homework.  
  
Finally, she can’t take it any longer. Really, she wants to scream it from the rooftops, but she supposes for the time being her mom will do. “Mama, I met a girl,” she says. “And I like her a lot, and she-- _she likes me too._ ”  
  
“Really?” Her mom asks excitedly. She moves over to sit down next to Joana at the table. “At your new school?”  
  
Joana nods enthusiastically, feeling like a bobble head but also not caring in the least bit. “She’s in my literature class. We did a project together. Mama...she’s so funny, and so smart, and creative, and _alive_...and she’s so beautiful, too. And we kissed last week, and...I think we’re together now. I really think we are!”  
  
“That’s wonderful, mija!” Joana’s mom squeezes her hand. “She must be a special girl, truly, if she’s making you this happy.”  
  
Joana thinks about her again, and smiles even wider. “She is.”  
  
“But Joana,” her mom leans in. “Does she know...about you?”  
  
Joana shifts uncomfortably in her seat. She can feel her smile slipping off her face, quickly as it came. “A little,” she says. “I haven’t told her everything but like...a bit.”  
  
Her mother nods seriously. “Well, when the time is right, you’ll tell her,” she says confidently. “Now, tell me more about her. What’s her name? Do you have a picture of her?”  
  
“Her name is Cris.” Joana grins again, and reaches for her phone.

 

The next few days are good days, despite her mother’s attempts to ruin them.  
  
Joana goes over to Cris’s house and doesn’t leave for days, just stays there, wrapped up in the joy of being kissed and held and _loved_ by the girl that...she thinks she loves, honestly.  
  
And she knows that her mother gets worried, and she knows that there have been times that she’s disappeared for significantly less happy reasons. But still, she wants to yell into the phone every time her mother calls or texts her: _Can’t you trust me? Can’t you see that I am happy now, happier than I’ve ever been before, perhaps happier than I’ll ever be again?_  
  
But then Cris pulls her into another hug, or kiss, and those feelings of anger and frustration melt away.  
  
She’ll call her mother later.

 

But that Saturday’s a bad day. Joana barely makes it home, with the tears blinding her eyes against the sight of the subway stops, the ringing in her ears too loud, too loud to hear the announcements. Joana barely makes it home, and when she does, she collapses immediately.  
  
It’s a bad day because Joana’s fucked it all up again, she’s told Cris she loves her and Cris hasn’t taken it well. She’s freaked out, run away from her, and now Joana’s alone again, left with the knowledge that she’s been too intense again, ruined everything again. Been herself again, too much of herself. She’s too much. _Again_.  
  
“Joana? What’s wrong?”   
  
It’s her mother. She must have heard her crying. Joana turns around to face the wall, tries to ignore her. She knows that she’s still mad at her, she’s probably secretly gloating about being right. But she hears footsteps, and a moment later feels a warm hand on her shoulder as her mother reaches down to hug her. “What’s wrong, mija?”  
  
Joana shakes her head and rolls away from her touch. Her mother, undeterred, leans in again. “Joana...Dr. Ramírez told us it was good for you to talk about your feelings.”  
  
Joana rolls her eyes. “Fuck Dr. Ramírez.”  
  
Her mother sighs. “Joana…”  
  
“Alright!” Joana feels anger shoot through her at the warning tone in her voice. Who is she to tell her how to handle her emotions? “Fine! I fucked up again. I told Cris I loved her, and--and--she doesn't love me, and she ran away! And I ruined it! No one’s gonna love me! I’m just--too much!”  
  
“Oh, Joana,” her mother murmurs. “I’m sorry that happened. But, that’s not true! You’re _not_ too much. At all! And there absolutely is someone out there who’s going to love you, and they’re going to love you so, so much. I promise you that.”  
  
Joana shakes her head in disbelief. “How can you say that? How can you know that? You just don’t get it! You’re not like me, Mama! Your brain isn’t broken like mine. You don’t know what it’s like to see too much, feel too much all the time, but always at the wrong time! All I do is fuck up and fuck up and fuck up, and I don’t know how to stop. I may as well just fucking _die_.”   
  
In the moment, she means it with all her heart, and she can tell her mother knows that as well. Joana hears a small gasp behind her, and her mother draws back. And she knows she’s fucked up again, and now her mother’s against her too.   
  
She may as well start packing her bags now.

 

_Joana barely remembers the next week. It blurs together into a montage of psych evaluations and mute sessions with therapists, with pills and group therapy and sitting alone, drawing with the sanctioned pens. And then coming back, trying to see Cris again, telling the truth about herself, the whole truth, finally, and seeing her blank face in response. And then that argument, that horrible argument, the words that they spit at each other no person should ever say, or hear. That night, Joana sinks deep into herself, shuts the door behind her. And no matter how much her mother pounds on it, begs to be let in, to know what’s wrong, Joana won't let her._

  
  
The next morning, Joana wakes up to her mom next to her. She groans, and rolls over, tries to pull her blanket over her head, shut her out.  
  
“Joana.” Her mom shakes her shoulder gently. “Please, talk to me.”  
  
Joana says nothing, just shakes her head.  
  
“Please.”   
  
Joana pulls the blanket further over her head.  
  
“Did something happen between you...and Cris?”  
  
Joana hates her mom. She hates how well she knows her, how well she can read her. Tentatively, carefully, she lifts the blanket off of her face. And now she can see her mom’s eyes, so full of love and concern. Just looking to see her daughter, to know what she’s going through. Eyes that won't judge, will only worry, and listen to what she has to say.  
  
And so she nods. “We-we had a fight.”  
  
Her mom’s face falls. “Oh no, mija. What about?”  
  
Joana closes her eyes. “I--I told her about-about having BPD. And-and being hospitalized, and she-she didn’t really get it. Didn’t understand why I couldn’t talk with her, didn’t understand why I needed her answer about if--if she loved me right away, and couldn’t wait. She-she just said she didn't know what to say, that she was upset I hadn’t told her what was going on with me when-when I went to the hospital. And it-it got pretty nasty. We both said some-some awful things.”  
  
“Oh, Joana.” Her mom wraps her arms around her, and Joana buries her head in her chest as she feels her tears begin to spill over. “I think--it sounds like you need to talk again, mija. I think--it sounds like you both have a lot of strong emotions going on right now--”  
  
Joana laughs. “You think?”  
  
Her mom smiles. “Perhaps that’s not the best wording. What I mean to say is that I think it’s clear both of you care about each other a lot. And you have a lot of feelings that you still need to work out together. So, I think you still need to talk to each other again. Listen to each other’s feelings. Apologize, even. Don’t think it has to be over yet, Joana. Because I really don’t think it is.”  
  
Joana looks up at her. Something’s growing in her chest, something suspiciously like hope. Something like, perhaps her love story can have a happy ending after all.  
  
“You think so?” She asks.  
  
Her mom nods. “Trust me.”

 

Saturday is a good day. Even better than good, because she follows her mother’s advice. And she goes to Cris again, and apologizes, and Cris apologizes too. And Joana can see in her eyes how terribly sorry she is, truly, sorrow enough to match what Joana feels herself. And that night, she can hold Cris again, kiss Cris again, Cris who knows the truth about her and wants her the same. Cris, who just might love her after all.  
  
That night, Joana hurries home, and hugs her mom for the first time in weeks. And as she does so, she whispers in her ear, “You were right, Mama.”

 

The next few days are good days, and Joana spends the evening at the kitchen table with her mom, excitedly telling her about everything.   
  
“Watch this,” she says, laughing, showing her the Instagram video of her and Cris making funny faces with the popcorn-eating filter.  
  
Her mom laughs in surprise. “Wow!” She says. “Is that what teens in relationships are doing these days?”  
  
Joana laughs. “Mama, you’re so old-fashioned,” she jokes, and takes on a snooty, intellectual tone. “Yes, here, you can see a classic example of a 21st century romance: the Instagram story.”  
  
“Oh, I’m getting to old for this,” her mom sighs dramatically.  
  
Joana laughs. “Well, here is something a bit more old-fashioned that might comfort you a little.” She shows her mother one of the sketches of Cris she’s been working on, a little drawing of her sitting cross-legged and beaming, with her head tilted to the side.  
  
“Awww,” her mom says. “That’s beautiful, mija. Have you shown her that?”  
  
Joana shakes her head. “Not yet. It’s not done yet. But I might, someday.”  
  
Her mom nods in understanding.

  
  
“I told her, Mama,” Joana says later, voice hushed for a reason she doesn’t quite understand, “I told her about me--about having BPD, and, well, you know she was a little nervous at first. But you know what she said to me today?”  
  
“What?” Her mom asks, eyes shining.  
  
Joana beams and leans in close. “She said, _I won’t run away.”_

 

 _The beginning of the week is good, but Thursday is a bad day, one of the worst she’s had in awhile. The world around her grows dark and unfamiliar, and her thoughts keep swirling around her, growing louder and louder until all she wants is to shout, scream, EXPLODE--anything, anything to just SHUT. THEM. UP.  
  
And her parents aren’t helping, they’re only making things worse, asking her how she’s feeling, what’s wrong, and they won’t leave her alone, won’t let her go off with herself and her thoughts, they keep swarming around her, closing in on her, trapping her, until she just yells “EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING IS WRONG! But ESPECIALLY YOU!”  
  
She barely registers the car ride, the check in, the change into the white hospital gown, the click of the lock on the door behind her. It’s all routine at this point. She’ll be out in a week, and back in again in a few more. And so she lies there on the bed, and stares at the ceiling, and waits. For what, she doesn’t even know._  
  
But then there’s a break in the routine. Suddenly, the door opens, and suddenly Cris is there, all blonde and beaming. She’s _there_ , she’s _there_ in the hospital with Joana. She’s seeing Joana now, in the darkest, ugliest depths of her illness, and _she’s not running away, in fact, she’s running towards her,_ throwing her arms around her, kissing her forehead. And Joana is holding her too, and she can’t believe it, she can’t believe this is real, that Cris is _here_. But it’s real, it’s so, so real, and as Cris holds her close, and whispers about how she scared her, and how her mom called her to let her know that she was here and how glad she is that she did, all Joana can think is _Damn. Maybe I did get lucky in some way after all._  
That, and _I love you I love you I love you I love y--_

 

“You told Cris I was here?” Joana asks later.  
  
Her mom smiles. “Yes. I thought she would want to know, and I thought you might like to see her. Was that okay?”  
  
Joana grins. “Yes, mama. It was perfect.”

 

That Saturday is a bad day. It’s a bad day because Joana’s realized what she needs to do. She can’t help hearing Cris’s words over and over again, about how she scared her so fucking much. And Joana knows now that if she loves Cris, really loves Cris, she can’t do this to her again. She can’t keep scaring her, but she can’t know that she won’t keep ending up in the hospital over and over again. And Cris will suffer every single time.  
  
And so Joana knows it for sure. She has to end it now.

  
  
Joana puts a blanket over her mirror after Cris leaves. She can’t bear to look at herself now, after what she’s done, after all the pain that she’s just seen in Cris’s face. The bag of gifts in the corner of the room just makes things worse, makes Joana feel, for a moment, that maybe she’s making the wrong choice. It takes every ounce of willpower in her body to keep herself from running after her, from crying _No! It was a lie, I love you, I love you, I love you--_  
  
All she can do now is remind herself that it’s for the best. That sure, it hurts now, but in the end, Cris will be happier. And Joana can be happy with that, too. Eventually. One day.  
  
Joana hears a knock on her door, and for a moment, she hopes that Cris has come back to challenge her, to say _no, you DO love me._ But it’s just her mother, and she gives her mirror a quick glance as she comes to sit down beside her. “Joana?” she asks quietly. “Please...excuse me for intruding, but...did something happen between you and Cris? I saw her leaving, and--”  
  
Joana shakes her head quickly. “No. Nothing.”   
  
Keep up the pretense, and eventually she’ll believe it herself.  
  
“Okay,” her mother says.   
  
They sit in silence, her mom staring at her, and _staring_ at her, until her looks and the lack of sound weighing down on Joana until she feels she might explode.  
  
“I just--realized that I didn’t want to hurt her anymore,” she bursts out finally.  
  
Her mother tilts her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”  
  
“I mean--” Joana swallows. “I mean, she was so scared by my...episode this week. I just--we don’t know if that will happen again, or not. And I can’t keep putting her through that if it does. And so…I decided to end it. For her sake.”  
  
Joana’s hoping that her mother will nod. That she’ll say, _Oh, that was so kind and sensible of you, Joana._ That she’ll tell Joana she made the right choice. But she’s just silent, sitting there with her lips pursed.  
  
Finally, she says, “Joana, I’m not going to tell you how to think or feel, okay? But it’s clear that girl, Cris--it’s clear that she cares about you very much. _Especially_ after seeing you in the hospital that day.”  
  
Neither of them say any more.  
  
It’s a bad day.

 

The next few days are bad day as well, and all Joana can think of is the sad, confused look on Cris’s face. She keeps reminding herself that it’s for the best, that Cris will be happier without her. She waits, and waits, and waits to be happy with her choice, too.   
  
But she isn’t.

 

And then her mom is right. And that Wednesday is a good day. Possibly the best, and a signifier of many, many more good days to come. Because Cris comes back. Cris _doesn’t run away._ She shows up with a copy of the book they’ve spent so much time discussing, and tells her that she loves her. That _she loves her._ And no matter how much Joana tries to convince her that she’s making the wrong choice, that Cris won’t be happy with her for long, Cris won’t budge, countering her arguments until Joana is no longer convinced herself.  
  
And Cris tells her that she’s here for her, that she doesn’t need anyone else but her. _Her, Joana_ , with her broken brain. Cris says she needs her. And she tells Joana not to worry about how things change, about how she’ll be one day or the next, or even one hour for now. They just need to take it slow. They just need to take it minute by minute.  
  
In that minute, Joana feels _love_ , true _love_. And she’s not Joana with the broken brain any longer, she decides, she’s Joana with the beautiful girlfriend who loves her and has seen her at her best and at her worst, and wants to be with her all the same. She’s Joana Bianchi Acosta with Cris Soto Peña in her arms. With a love story that  _will_ have a happy ending.  _And that,_ Joana decides, _is really the greatest thing to be in the world._

 

“I should have listened to my mom,” Joana thinks aloud later. “We could have been doing this a lot sooner.”  
  
She and Cris are wrapped around each other, curled up in a park bench and sharing an ice cream.  
  
“Huh?”Cris asks.  
  
Joana laughs. “I mean--” she explains, “she told me not to give up on this. And she was right. She was completely right.”  
  
“Hmm.” Cris leans over to lick some stray chocolate smears from the corner of Joana’s mouth. “She’s a smart woman, your mom.”  
  
Joana smiles. “That she is.”  
  
She can’t wait to tell her so later on.

**Author's Note:**

> Hmu on tumblr @bicrissoto!


End file.
